Some Assembly Required
by Charon the Sabercat
Summary: Or "Building a Relationship". Jack puts a lot of pride into looking his best in front of everyone, so when a new, non-speaking Sally finds him in pieces after an accident, it's a little jarring. They make a powerful set of friends, the two of them, and maybe it's because they built it up from the head down. Featuring not-evil!Dr. Finkelstein.
1. Chapter 1

Some Assembly Required

Disclaimer: Own nothing, just got inspired and wrote a thing.

* * *

Jack, a master of most things, never handled embarrassment well.

A perfectionist in everything, from personal style to the execution of Halloween, Jack was near-loathe to let anyone see the work he put into that perfection. There was a sense that he had to keep up a sort of regal, kingly persona to impress the townspeople, but really he'd known them his entire life and even if he had slipped up, they would likely be the last to notice.

No, it was a sense of disappointing himself keeping him away from town in this vulnerable moment. He wanted this Halloween to be something special, and the idea of dancing along the tops of the tombstones in a dreadful twisting of ballet and balance struck him as something both ghastly and glorious! He had to try it out, perfect the routine before he presented it to the Mayor for his input- which would be an immediate affirmative but still- and leave the townspeople awestruck by his immeasurable talent.

So it was with a heavy heart, figuratively, and a sense of brokenness, literally, that Jack looked up at the night sky after slipping and shattering against a tombstone. Well. Rather embarrassing. No one was here to see it, which was good, but then there was also a lack of people around to help find his legs.

He rolled his head, after a subtle but strenuous maneuvering of his mandible, onto its bottom and got a good look at his situation. His body, at least, was still held together by his suit. But he could see, even from his low vantage point, that all of him had been shaken quite apart. Without his arms attached to his spine, his limbs wouldn't have the wherewithal to reach out and put him back together.

What a bother. That bothered feeling might have settled into dread, at some point, because while the town would inevitably gather up and search for him, it would be a long while before they did. He was prone to his little excursions into the deeper reaches of the cemetery, after all, and he always came back in one piece.

Instead, the bothered feeling settled into dread rather immediately, as he heard footsteps approaching right behind him, and he couldn't turn his head around to look.

"Hello?!" Jack called out to the feet behind him. "I wasn't expecting company today! Have you been her- woah!"

Without preamble, Jack was caught up in a pair of small hands, and in a moment of honest terror thought that one of Boogie's boys had found him in this moment. But he went up, and kept going up, farther than any of the children even stacked on top of each other, and with confusion swimming in his skull, he was turned around to a face he didn't recognize.

He knew every face. There was no such thing as a face he couldn't place to a name, and yet here one was, a lovely young corpse looking over him with large and intense eyes. Jack didn't recognize the expression at first, until it dawned on him that she didn't recognize him either, and that simply opened further questions. Then he went to shake her hand, automatically, and the reality of the situation knocked on the back of his skull like a rude visitor.

"Ah! Yes, well-" he stumbled on his words. "Good day, madam, you seem to have caught me at a bit of a disadvantage."

Face still twisted in concern, she managed the slightest of nods.

"Please, if I could get you to bring me back to Halloween Town-" Her eyes flashed with something like recognition. Ah! That must have made something click. "Yes! If you would, please, I would be very much obliged! Pardon my interrupting your-" He scanned his peripheral vision and spotted a basket of herbs hanging from her elbow. "Gardening."

He left space there, for her to speak, but nothing came out. Her face shifted, though, from dawning knowledge to... apprenhension? Her grip on him certainly changed while her fingers nervously fidgeted.

"Erm- madam? Are you all right?"

Away, somewhere behind Sally but hard to pinpoint out in the open, he heard it. Doctor Finkelstein's voice, ragged with rage, shouting "SALLY!"

She moved like a woman possessed. Jack went from her shocked expression to a mouth-and-sockets full of garden herbs, and then his rib cage and legs, then arms piled on top of him and shuffled until he was quite apart and stuffed cleanly and firmly into the bottom of the basket. He opened his mouth to speak, but a sudden shift put several of his vertebrae and his tie firmly into the hook of his jaw, and another bump dislodged it completely. Now unable to cry out, he was left to listen through the wicker as "Sally" ran- and fell, he thought, as he slammed into the wall of the basket- back to the doctor.

"Stay where I can see you!" the doctor scolded her, to Sally's silence. "Why is that so hard a request?" He made a parental noise of mortification. "Are you trying to be rid of me? An old man, confined to the cobbled paths, while your young legs try to carry you off where I cannot follow!"

He didn't allow her time to answer. Jack heard the motors of his chair whirring. "Get back to the house, I'm sure you have enough of whatever you need."

The return voyage was made in complete silence, and Jack, internally, sighed in relief. The Doctor would see to it that Jack was pieced back together down to the little bones in his ears, and this whole mess could be forgotten about in an instant. Finkelstein valued his privacy even moreso than Jack, after all. Although he had a few introductions to make, and perhaps a short discussion with the bad doctor about the difference between "being private" and "keeping people secret from the townspeople". All in a day's work for the Pumpkin King, after all.

Instead, Jack finally came back to his sight, and spotted all of him in a heap on the floor, and Sally reaching up to put him on a counter in a room he didn't recognize, and those eyes, those wide and terrified eyes, looking at him in sheer apology.

Perhaps this would take a little longer than he first anticipated.

Looking at him expectantly, Sally suddenly started and quickly reached down to the floor, coming back with his jawbone. She lifted him up just enough to slide the bone back into its proper hinge. He tested it, snapped it back into alignment with a quick wrench of his jaw, and-

"Ah- hello there." Jack felt the strongest urge to move his hands as he spoke it was almost making him ache. "Miss Sally, was it?" She nodded, and he continued. "Thank you very much for collecting me. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it-"

He was... quite struck with the effect. That face, those eyes that had been twisted in concern and that little off-center lip that she chewed on in obvious worry, all of it cleared away into unguarded surprise, and then... pure delight. He got a wide, open-mouthed, little gasp and wide smile for the barest of efforts to be cordial. And really, lost in his head he was at the moment, she was really a quite beautiful monster now that he could take a good look. That he could have such an effect on a woman he didn't know, and that seemed to not know him, struck him speechless for a moment.

Moments pass, and Jack reflexively cleared the throat that was scattered into seven pieces on the floor. "Thank you. But, back to business, Sally; I must be brought to the doctor."

Gone was the smile, and instead Sally shook her head with such passion that her long red hair fluffed and rolled out behind her, and Jack scowled in confusion.

"No? What do you mean 'no'?"

Sally shook her head again, "no", and ducked to the floor to start collecting his bones. He followed her as best he could, squirming and wriggling to keep her in sight whenever she disappeared from his peripheral vision. "I'm sorry, but I'm not understanding the motivation behind this. Miss Sally, are you embarrassed that you found me in such a state? Because I assure you, you have no reason to feel such a way. It was entirely my fault."

He was nudged to the side, and a messy pile of all of his spine took his place. Sally scooped up the remaining bones and bits of him and dropped them noisily into a basket just out of Jack's sight, only knowing it was a basket because it made the same wicker crunch he had heard when Sally had collected him the first time. Part of him was rather unnerved that she had so brazenly picked through his suit to find all of them. "Miss Sally?"

She didn't respond, instead rifling through the pieces of his back and spreading them out over the counter. Every one laid out, easily visible, none touching each other. Sally looked over the bones, nodding in approval, and started running her hands over her scalp.

Jack was transfixed a moment. Her hands methodically ran through her hair, then began on her chin before traveling back along her jaw. Her hair pulled back along her arms as she mapped out the outline of her neck and collarbone, then back up to her head.

Finally, she took to the vertebrae and started sorting them, smallest to largest, and Jack broke out of his stupor and realized she was trying to put him back together herself. "Ah- Miss Sally, I appreciate the concern very much, but..."

She stopped to watch him as he spoke, and he was struck with a thought. "Sally, I'm sorry, I'm sure I've talked your ear off quite enough today. How are you?"

Silence met him, and he was quite certain it would. Not a shy silence, either. A complete one.

"Sally..." he chanced. "Do you speak?"

She shook her head. "no."

"Ah. Well, this does make conversing a little one-sided, doesn't it?" She pursed her lips, and Jack sheepishly smiled. "Sorry, slip of the tongue. Ah- introductions, yes. My name is Jack. Jack Skellington. Pleasure to meet you."

With a distracted but polite nod, Sally went back to sorting bones.

Jack swallowed to clear his mind.

"I hate to sound unappreciative, but I believe the doctor could do this much faster. It would leave you free to do whatever you need to do around the house."

She shook her head again, her smile giving way to a frown, before getting back into her task.

He swallowed again.

Was normal conversation this difficult? Had he gotten so used to an instant wave of adulation, so used to it that he couldn't speak without it?

Oh dear, this was a dilemma.

"SALLY!"

This time, he was braced for the shuffle. Somewhat. He was still gathered up with all his backbone in a hurry, bones knocking against bones, as Sally swept him up in a panic. What he wasn't prepared for was Sally tossing him full-force into a cast-iron cauldron and filling his ears with deafening ringing.

"-was that racket?!" was the noise he finally came back to. "It SOUNDS like an empty pot! I expect my dinner on time, and I find you down here daydreaming! I will give you half an hour extra, and no more, Sally!"

A door slammed above him, and when Sally picked him back up, she was wracked with guilty from her hands to her feet. Even through the buzz in his ears, he could see that, and he wished again that he had his hands so he could put them on her shoulders. "No apologies necessary, Sally, I understand completely." She smoothed her hand over his skull, perhaps saying 'thank you' where words couldn't or perhaps checking for injuries, he wasn't invested in figuring out the motivations like he was before. "I think I understand completely, anyway."

She put him down, and he explained himself aloud for her to hear. She traveled back and forth from the cauldron, returning his spine to its place on the kitchen counter. "Trying to keep us both out of trouble, are you? The doctor doesn't seem the type to listen to explanations, and you're not exactly in a position to give them..." She nodded frequently, and Jack took this to mean he was hitting the points with steady accuracy. "And I suppose my reassembly will have to wait until you get dinner done?"

She nodded again, opening up the drawers below him and the cupboard above to pull ingredients out.

"C'est la mort, I suppose," Jack bemoaned in his schoolboy French. "I can at least keep you good company while you cook. And I appreciate yours very much, I must say again." Sally gave a little smile at that. "After all, without you here, I would have no-body."

Sally snuffled a laugh and hid it in the side of a jar.

Such was their conversation for the next half-hour, Jack making small talk and little jokes as Sally busily threw together a thin, but serviceable broth for Doctor Finkelstein's dinner. She sorted through what bones she could in her spare minutes, but after a few straight minutes of trying, even Jack had no clue of what went where and in what order.

Eventually, when the soup was nearly finished, Sally deposited all the bones in the little basket and took up Jack's suit. She ruffled and fluffed and wrinkled it into a cushion all while Jack flinched and wondered how long it would take to iron out, bunched up the crumpled mess of his clothes into the corner of the cupboard, and placed Jack's head into the hastily made nest.

"Ah- oh dear- erm- 'bedtime', I suppose."

Sally gave him a mournful nod, her constant glances to the top of the room's sizeable ramp telling Jack that she was expecting the doctor, and soon. He sighed.

"Goodnight for now, Sally," he told her. "But as soon as you can tomorrow, come fetch me. If you're dead-set on assembling me yourself, then we're going to need a guide."

She nodded again, this time with her face set in determination, and when Jack gave her a grin, she returned it in force. "Right! I'll hold you to that, Sally. We're together in this, aren't we?" She nodded once, sharp and focused. "Right! Good night then. And see you in the morning."

She patted the top of his head gently and shut him inside the cupboard, and eventually out of force of will, Jack found himself asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Some Assembly Required

Disclaimer: Same one as last time.

* * *

Jack smelled breakfast before he woke up properly. Sally had been cooking, by the sound of the bubbling cauldron and the wafting cloud of steam in the air. She'd set up a little cushion of fabric scraps and a bowl with a straw for him to drink out of, and while he drank, she cooked up the rest and disappeared to serve a bowlful to the doctor.

He didn't eat much. Without a body to feed, he wasn't too hungry. While she was gone, however, he could get a good look out of her kitchen window and see exactly where he was in town. It didn't make too much of a difference, except that the kitchen window faced farthest away from the main street and was surrounded on all sides by heavy walls and privacy fences. There would be no getting someone's attention from here... although, he supposed, if that were the case, Sally would have done so by now.

"Sally..." he cried out to the returning footsteps. "You don't mean to tell me that he keeps you down here all by yourself? Er-" he backpedaled. "Well, I suppose you couldn't tell me anything at the moment."

Sally appeared from above, winding her way down the ramp with wobbling footsteps and both hands firmly grasping the guard wall. Sticking to 'yes and no's for now, he kept asking. "Did he make you incapable of speech? Or... maybe... you haven't learned how yet?" Sally nodded to that one. "Ah, fantastic! Then we can learn together, you and I. But first, we'll need something from the doctor's study."

She gasped as if alarmed by the very idea. Jack tilted his skull back just a little, inviting her to lean in so he could whisper. "Trust me, my dear, I won't lead you into anything that would get you into trouble. Or... well." He thought on that a moment. "Perhaps, I might." She gasped again. "It's all right! There are some things in death that are worth getting in a little trouble for. That's what Halloween is all about, isn't it? A little troubling to improve one's life."

She tilted her head at him.

"Halloween?"

She blinked, blankly.

Jack nearly blanched. "How old- nevermind that. Are you ready to help me?"

Sally let out a full-body shiver, as if she were trying to force the tension out of herself. With a little tremor left in her arms, she nodded in agreement.

"All right, pick me up." She did. "To the upstairs, Sally! We'll need a book from-" She shook her head. "What? He's a doctor! He'll have a book on skeletons!"

She shook her head again, even as she ascended the ramp as quickly as her shaking legs would carry her. The upstairs door was shut tight, and she opened it only a crack before the doctor's voice came through it.

"What is it, Sally?" he asked in a positively slimey tone, the tone of over-politeness used when a guest was being a particular bother. Jack couldn't see through the door, kept out of sight and tucked well under Sally's farther arm, and he supposed that was on purpose. "Do you have something for me?" Her hair fluttered against his eye sockets as she shook her head. "Then stay down there until I can pay you my full attention, my dear. Can't have you wandering the house on your own."

He waited until she'd shut the door solidly behind her before groaning in frustration. "Wandering the hous- However old you are, Sally, I can assure you, you are not to be shut up into a side room like a child!" She held him up to they could speak face to face. "I am going to personally speak to him about this once I have my body back..."

Oh, it was so tempting to just call out to the doctor and have his whole body fixed in a second, but a genuine fear went through him of what the doctor might do to Sally in response... and what she'd think of him afterward. He took a deep breath, Sally watching him the whole time, and spoke.

"Sally, what I'm about to tell you to do should only be done... well, not in emergencies..." he thought aloud. "It's really harmless, but it's not something to abuse, do you understand?"

She nodded, looking a tad fearful.

"Go into the cabinet and find something for me. We're going to make belladonna tea."

She nodded and clambered back down the ramp, one hand tight on Jack and the other on the wall, and he explained. "My mother used this when she couldn't sleep. You don't use much, but a little sip of tea and it put her out like a light. But we can't use straight tea, that would be too conspicuous." Back on the kitchen floor, Sally pulled out jars upon jars before finding a little tea kettle.

"We'll need to brew it with something that covers up the flavor. Perhaps something to play off the soft taste... maybe crabapple rose hips? That might be too posh, it's a bit grandmotherly. Do you have any-" Sally put a bottle in front of his face. "Worm's Wart? No, it doesn't make a good tea, I've tried. Too sweet. Maybe snake oil essence? The flavor floats on top a little, though, you have to beat it pretty severely to get the blend right. Perhaps something in a light-"

Sally popped open the kettle, dosing in a few drops of belladonna from a jar labeled "Deadly Nightshade", a flask of water, and finally nearly half of a lung of fresh, earthy Frog's Breath.

His train of thought ground to a halt. "Or Frog's Breath! If you like something that tastes like it's smacking you on the tongue with a paddle."

Sally laughed and swirled the kettle lightly before putting it on the embers of the cooking fire. Lifting Jack again, she hunkered down by the fire with him in her lap, silently watching, and Jack lulled into a light doze while the embers warmed him.

What an odd relationship he'd fallen into with this woman. Was this odd? To be automatic friends with someone he'd never met before, who'd never met him? For him to be giving her absolutely terrible in the bad way advice to save his own dignity? Was this truly a friendship, if their communication was so one-sided? He wasn't entirely sure how to answer the specifics, but he did know that he liked her. She had a wonderful intensity to her gaze when she was concentrating, and an unguarded way to her emotions that made her easy to read even without speech. Perhaps it was her finding him at his worst... No way to go but up from here, like digging out of a grave and hitting the moonlight. Maybe-

She stood up fast, and he went along for the ride as she hurriedly scooped all of his bones and his suit into her basket and scaled the ramp, yet again, to put it next to the door. She hurried down, each step getting a little more wobbly, and caught up the kettle just as it was starting to whistle. It was painful to watch her stumble with the kettle throwing off her balance, wishing not for the first time that he could just reach out a hand and help her up like a gentleman. Her face showed none of the discomfort that his skull did, he was sure. She just set her mind to something and did it, and did it fast and did it even through her lack of speech and bad legs and Jack had to immediately distract himself. Was there enough belladonna in the tea? Would this work?

She put his head in the basket with his bones, and with one little pat on the skull, she disappeared into the house, shutting the door behind her.

He couldn't hear. He wished he could... he wished he could be there, he hated sending her out there on her own. Perhaps he'd just gotten used to being tucked under her arm and figured she'd bring him with her. He wished-

Sally flung open the door, her smile splitting her face from ear to ear, and he wondered why he ever worried about her. "Sally, you brilliant woman, it worked!"

She laughed out loud, unrestrained for what was maybe the first time in her life, Jack liked to romantically think. She definitely picked up the basket of him with more fervor than normal, and she made her way up the main ramp of the foyer with twice the speed as before. He caught a glimpse in the doctor's office as they went past, and yes, he was quietly asleep in a slump over his notes.

And then they passed the library. "Sally- Sally! The books are in there!"

Then they went into another little door, one Jack had noticed but never paid much attention to, and Sally went inside.

It was so sparse, compared to his own home. His abode was littered with family treasures, pictures and scrolls, trinkets and knicknacks from old passions and aborted plans. This room was barely more than walls, with a table before the window and a bed hanging from chains. He would have called it a closet, really, if Sally hadn't put him down with a firm authority. "This is mine," her body language said, and he heard it clearly. Apparently moving him into her room took higher priority than finding a book with a skeleton inside.

A chance look out the window, and Jack saw his home, and chuckled. They were so close for how long? And he'd completely missed her until yesterday, because he'd dared to wander off on his own. As she lifted his head, he caught her eyes and lead her to look out the window. "I live there! Remind me to invite you over, once this whole debacle is quite over with. We'll have tea." She grimaced. "Minus the nightshade." There was the grin, and he laughed.

The doctor slept, and Sally and Jack made their way to the doctor's study. After some frustratingly careful peeking into volume after volume, Sally found an anatomy book. Sitting in her room in a tense silence, listening for the sound of the doctor's chair, they sorted through his vertebrae bit by bit until, after a few test configurations, they put his neck together.

So much progress, and yet so little. Soon they heard Doctor Finkelstein groaning, and Sally moved Jack and his bones behind her bedroom door. Indeed, it soon popped open, and Sally was thusly lectured on what did and did not make good tea, and how nightshade had to be boiled and boiled until the color changed otherwise it made him very sleepy, but it was an honest if ignorant mistake, Sally, don't do it again. She weathered the tirade in silence, in what Jack was certain was a conscious decision on the doctor's part. Fate was surely kicking him in the tailbone, because right after Sally was instructed to get back to the kitchen and start a proper dinner. Jack was left alone, in a basket behind a door, staring out a window to his real home and wondering what he had done to deserve this.

It wasn't totally without entertainment. With his neck reattached, he has another part of his body to move and reacquaint himself with. Without the weight of his body below it, though, it wiggled under him like a tail more than moved his head properly. It was an odd sensation of his body doing something entirely wrong. He grimaced and frowned and scowled and made every sort of terrible face he could before he got used to the feeling. He couldn't imagine what he would need it for, either, but at least he was, and it was a start.

By the time he was wish he had some nightshade of his own, Sally was let back into her room and the door was firmly locked behind her. She stood, waving the doctor goodbye until the door clicked.

The chair whirred away.

Sally scooped him up and hugged him, all foot-and-a-half of him and his neck, and he laughed at the absurdity.

"I missed you too!" Sally held him out enough for them to speak quietly. "All right, let's see how much of me we can put back together. Did he notice the missing book?"

She shook her head.

"Didn't mind the tea?"

Her expression was unsure.

"Right, that's why we have to be subtle about such things. Are you ready now?"

She nodded and grinned.

"Excellent!"

They worked until the sun was down and the moon was the room's only light. Sally, thankfully, was blessed with the same stellar night vision as Jack, and they put him back piece by slow piece. More of his spine, and then his collar and right shoulder. Around this stage of his body, Jack started to feel less helpless and more naked, as his body started to look more like himself.

She started on his ribcage and stopped midway, puzzled by the variety of bones to stick together. Instead, she filled out his shoulder and the rest of his arm until he had enough to prop himself up by his elbow and help her count. Then, after losing track a few times when a cloud passed overhead, she finished his hand so he could point specific bones out. He was sure that his thumb was on wrong. Or maybe it was the wrong thumb.

It wasn't just him worrying. Sally kept checking between him and the book, over and over, counting them by touching the bones and then their counterpart in the book. One, two, three. Jack, mostly spine and some ribs and a stray arm, checked by giving himself a light rattle. Do, re, mi... there were notes missing.

Sally covered up a few ribs in the book with her fingers.

There were bones missing.

Sally and Jack looked into each other's eyes and realized together, in horror, that parts of him were back in the cemetery.

And down in the town, the alarm sounded.

Jack gasped aloud, and Sally stood up to see lights flickering on across the town spread out below her window. "What- why are they sounding the alarm? Sally we have to go see what's wrong!"

She squeaked in shock, pointing between him and the door, asking how to get out with the lock shut tight.

"I don't know! We'll have to find another way!" Jack scanned the infuriatingly bare room. Other than the echo of the wailing klaxon, there wasn't a damn thing he hadn't already seen in the several hours he'd been stuck there. "You don't have sheets to make a rope? No scraps of cloth?"

Sally pointed down, to the kitchen- right! They were down there from this morning!

"Bah!" He smacked his fist against the sewing table. The alarm was thumping in his ears. "We can't get out the door, not going out the window while I'm in this state..."

Sally gasped. She started to stumble, getting her weight aligned the right direction, and threw herself to the window to throw it open. Jack leaned after her with his weight tenderly balanced on the bottom of his back. "You've thought of something?"

She nodded, although with her back turned to him he couldn't see her face. Something about the slight angle of her shoulders, though, told him she wasn't happy about it.

"Whatever it is, Sally, I'm sure it will work." She nodded a bit more firmly. "You're sure it will work?"

She met his gaze again, and her troubled face suggested. There was an echo in her eyes, not uncertainty. More dread, a familiar kind of dread that Jack saw on people who needed dentistry work done. "You... how do you know it will work?"

She shrugged a little, weighing the options in her hands like a scale, and it clicked. "Sally, have you done this before?"

Sally made sure he was looking before pantomiming the event, "opening" her window and leaning over the side of her table, the windowsill... and then flipping over and landing in a heap on her floor.

"NO!" Jack snapped immediately, trying to talk over the rustling of fabric as she stood up. "No! I cannot believe- We are not jumping out the window! I will not put you in this kind of position!"

She popped his head off at the neck. His body wriggled under him, and when his hand went up to check for his head, it all fell back against the table in a clatter and promptly gave up. He wasn't sure whether to be angrier at his body or more scared for Sally. She put him back down on the table in front of her, searching through the desk for things he couldn't quite bother to look at.

"Sally!" He pleaded.

Sally pulled at a stitch just below her neck, and then as it loosened, pulled the halves of her chest open.

He recoiled, scandalized. "Sally!"

She waggled a finger at him in scolding and put it up to her lips before popping a bobbin of thread into his mouth. His teeth closed around it reflexively. Before he could gather up his tongue to spit it out, she hoisted him up and stuffed him into her chest facing outwards so he could see. His neck stump settled into- was it leaves?- Sally's stuffing. A needle scraped his skull, and thread criss-crossed his vision as Sally half-sewed up herself around him.

Gagged as he was, he couldn't scream as Sally made for the window, took a deep breath, and dropped.


	3. Chapter 3

Some Assembly Required

Disclaimer: Man it's been a while, hasn't it?

* * *

It sounded to his own ears like dropping a basket of laundry.

The cushion of leaves was a large part of it, his brain told him, and the fact that it was Sally's back hitting the ground all around him instead of his skull. He expected worse, and his teeth gnashed into the thread bobbin, but it was really no worse than missing a stair. Landing on the tombstone that shattered him had hurt worse.

They were still.

The quiet cushioned them in the uncaring night air. Jack was buried, and Sally was still, deathly still.

Jack struggled in her torso. All he wanted was a little more room, just that extra inch to see anything other than the cold night sky, but his lack of a body betrayed him. If anything, he only wiggled himself deeper into the leaf littler of Sally's chest, and the realization made him despair. All that scheming and sneaking, all the ideas he put in Sally's head, and to what end? His pride? His social standing? Oh, that he could stand now...

Up Sally sat, reaching into herself to pull Jack forward and tighten the stitches against him. When she reached into his mouth for the bobbin, he obligingly spit it out into her palm. "Sally... thank you. Are you all right?" He started to fret, all of his energy coming out into his mouth. "Is everything still attached to you? Are you hurt-"

Sally put her hand over his mouth. What he would give to see her face! But the message, at least, was clear. Silence was needed. He couldn't see anything but directly in front of him, peeking out between Sally's seams, but he could watch Sally's hands pass over her limbs and patch up the burst stitches that had opened in her legs and arms. All put together, Sally stole them away into the dark, following the shrieking alarm.

Town Hall must have been a terrifying sight for Sally. As quickly as Jack spotted a citizen on the edge of his vision, Sally ducked into an alley and slowed her pace to a crawl. He encouraged her in soft whispers to keep moving. She lacked Jack's lively, bounding steps, and several times Jack found himself trying to move for her, but her soft footfalls and unassuming spirit suited her well to the shadows. She followed the citizens all the way to the front gate of the Hall before Jack started to pointedly nose her to the back door. Bless the Mayor and his absent, trusting mind; he left the door unlocked behind him.

The backstage was comfortingly quiet and isolated. Sally nudged the door open and hesitated on every step, not a soul in sight as she snuck around the tables and chairs. Jack could only keep his voice so low, but Sally caught every word, he could tell. "Just get close enough to hear what he's saying ;we don't need to be seen." He pointed his nose to the hanging curtains in the eves. "If you can see him, he can see you. Now, hide."

She patted her chest below Jack's chin in what must have been an affirmative. Quiet, tucked into a thick velvet nook, they listened.

"Citizens of Halloween!" shrieked he frazzled and panicked Mayor. "I'm declaring a state of emergency!"

A dissenting voice Jack recognized as the local werewolf growled, "Only Jack can do that."

"That's the point!" the Major rebutted. "Jack is missing! He was spirited right out of the graveyard!"

The town muttered in disapproval. Jack nearly sighed in relief. The Mayor's anxious fits were nothing new, and rarely anything the town couldn't fix with the slightest little effort. The Mayor had a sixth sense for apathy, it seemed, and he threw himself back into his panic.

"It's true! Every word! Zero's come back with proof! Look! Jack's very bones!"

Sally and Jack both gasped, and before Jack could stop her- or tell her to look himself?- Sally whipped out of her hiding place and into the wings.

There is the Mayor's hand lie Jack's missing bones, bleached white in the spotlight like little shining gems. Jack nearly screamed.

The town _did._

The sudden noise startled Sally, sending her out of the wings and out through the back door. Jack's head spun for a brief moment before he could see again, and once he could, he was staring at Sally's panic-stricken eyes asking him what to do.

"I-I didn't know he had them!" Jack felt compelled to defend himself. "I thought you had found all of me!"

She flinched, and the Pumpkin King's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach, back at Finklestien's though it was.

"Nonono, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it angrily, I was making assumptions! Please, I beg of you, forgive me!"

Her expression softened, but her gaze drifted over her shoulder to the Town Hall.

"I'm not sure what to do about those..." Jack voiced his concerns while Sally worried at her lip. "Those have to be my missing ribs, and I thought we had my whole spine... I can't walk with pieces of it missing..."

Sally put him into her lap and made a circle with her hand.

With an owlish blink, he found himself at a loss for words.

Sally made the gesture again with emphasis, circling the ring her hand made with a finger before pointing at the door. Her brows were furrowing in frustration, and Jack pursed his lips in thought. A circle. A ring? The... moon? The sun- no. Around?

Jack grunted in disappointment with himself. "Sally, I promise once this is all cleared up, I will personally teach you how to speak. I am so-"

Sally shut him up with a hand over his mouth and a scowl. Ah. Perhaps _he_ was talking too _much_.

Sally held up a few fingers, then lowered them one by one. Three fingers, then two, one, and then the circle-

Jack jumped. "Zero!"

His little dog wisped through the door, through Sally, and grabbed Jack by the nose and pulled!

They were the worst few seconds of his life. Zero's little needle teeth scraped his eye sockets and nose no matter how much he commanded him to heel, drop it, down Zero, no! Granted, with his face clamped over by a mouth and his own stubborn need to keep them from being discovered, Jack could barely croak the words out. For every yank from Zero (and oh did Zero's growling ever rattle his ears), Sally held and pulled. Her hands were soft and mindful of his jawbone and careful of getting her fingers too close to Zero's teeth, and to Jack's horror, her timid grip started to slip-

Jack grunted. "Zero, no!"

Sally cried, "Zero, down!"

Her words were forced, unpracticed, but loud and precise. Zero dropped Jack with a startled yelp.

They must have been a sight, Jack distantly noted. Sally with his head clutched tight to her chest. Zero staring the pair of them down in utter confusion. Silence stretched on in a pregnant pause.

Someone opened the back door, bumping Sally's back, and she broke into a run. Jack could hear a voice calling after her, the Mayor's voice, but only in a polite apology and a concerned call to come back. Zero fluttered in and out of his peripheral vision, faithfully following them back to the doctor's lab where Sally threw herself against the front door.

It was locked.

Only then did Jack and Sally hear the Doctor's voice from within, frantically calling for Sally. Jack cursed himself, not for the first time that day and not for the last he was certain, and began to apologize. "Sally, I-"

Again the hand went over his mouth, and Jack found himself stuffed back into Sally's chest. Silence.

A long wait followed. He could piece together what had happened from clues. Sally's chest seam pulled tight, and after a few hurried steps, she fell forward. Zero barked and nudged her to get off the ground, and after a few minutes of that, the Doctor came and collected her. What followed felt like hours of held breath, flinching from touches, and the doctor sparing no opportunity to berate Sally for her foolishness and clumsy nature, for failing to learn her lesson that last time she fell out the window, for her loose hand-stitching that nearly took her head off, how she attracted Jack's damned dog and now he wouldn't leave, and for anything and everything under the sun. Or at least, that's what it felt like to Jack. Hours, it felt like hours of it all.

Finally, with the slam of a door, it was quiet. He heard his bones being laid out on a table and the soft tap of Sally putting them together, and them falling whenever Zero innocently tugged on one. Sally's stitches popped one by one until she pulled him free and attached him back to most of his body. He took a long breath of the cold night air, gathered his thoughts, looked to Sally... and felt the guilt pile back into his belly at the sight.

She looked so tired. The spark of wit and life in her eyes was gone, framed by dark bags and drooping eyelids. She pulled her stitches taut with sluggish hands, barely tieing them off. Her hair was matting, her posture slumped. She bore the full weight of the day on her little shoulders, looked up at Jack, and smiled. She was trying to reassure _him_. What a heel he was. What a _king_. What a friend he had been to this treasure of a woman.

"Jack..." her little voice cracked. "It's okay."

He pulled her into a hug and held her tight.

He'd decided. Enough was enough. If she could bear this long and terrible day with him as dead weight, then... Then it was time he held up his share of the burden. A plan started to form in his mind, and while it bubbled on the back burner of his brain, he patted a calming hand against Sally's shoulder. She squeezed him. She pulled away to look at him! Her smile brightened! The leaden guilt was giving way to butterflies in his stomach!

"Sally..." He had to swallow to clear his mind. He wasn't sure where to start. "You... have a lovely voice. And learn so quickly..." He squeezed her shoulder. "All right... come tomorrow, we make another break for it."

Sally clutched at his hand and gasped in delight. Jack felt a wash of warmth over his bones at the light coming back into her eyes. Yes! He would make this right still!

He launched into the fine details of the new plan, how Sally was to sneak out of the house- NO! NO, with the ramp this time, she could open the door while Zero distracted the doctor- and retrieve his bones from Mayor with help from Zero's nose. Bless the little spirit, Zero came when Jack whistled, and now that he was mostly together, Sally was a friend instead of a thief. They plotted together, Zero on Sally's lap, Sally's face and few words contributing immeasurable ideas until the wee hours or the morning. It wasn't until she was sleeping upright in her chair that Sally finally collected Jack in her sewing basket, covered him up, and finally went to sleep in her own bed.

In his brief moment of rest, Jack dwelled on his plan. It relied on Sally, and he told her as much, and it would keep her out of the doctor's abode for hours while she and Zero searched for his missing pieces. They could be anywhere in town, from the Mayor's pockets to a safe in Town Hall to kept under the rug on his front door, for all he knew. He had complete and utter faith that she would uphold her end... and hadn't told her even a whisper of his.

By the end of this debacle, they were either going to be the tightest of friends or Sally would hate him for eternity, and Jack felt as if he deserved the latter at the moment. But by god, he was the Pumpkin King. He would be free of this terrible situation.

And so would she.


	4. Chapter 4

Some Assembly Required:

Disclaimer: One new computer later...

* * *

Morning shined on the other side of his eyelids, but Jack wouldn't wake up. He was too comfortable and warm to really move. He only came to wakefulness when Sally roused him with a gentle pat to the top of his skull. He yawned shamelessly. "Good morning... are we still on for the plan?"

Sally nodded in total confirmation. Her hair was brushed. Her eyes were bright and alert. She had started laying Jack's bones out on her bed to free up her sewing basket. She must have been up and ready for a spell while he slumbered like a skeleton half his age. He was almost completely laid out like a museum specimen. Nothing on him was connected but everything seemed to be in correct-looking order.

It was a display worth being proud of. But that thought could wait. "Fantastic! You wonderful woman. And Zero's still here?"

Sally nodded and clapped her hands together twice. "Zero!" she called, and Zero slipped out from his spider hole in the ceiling to heel at Sally's ankles.

"Wonderful!" he cheered to both of them. "It couldn't be more wonderful!"

At that, Sally tittered.

"What? What's funny?"

His friend gestured to all of him, laid out on the bed in pieces.

Sally laughed. "Could be more wonderful."

"True..." Jack smiled, despite the nervous feeling growing in his belly. "All right, Zero, find the doctor! Sally, out the front! Hurry while the doctor's distracted! And good luck!"

With the basket thrown over her shoulder, Sally sped out of the bedroom door while Zero flew the opposite way.

He had to wait, and Jack was beginning to loathe waiting. The Doctor below made some horrid grumping at Zero's meddling, but he couldn't hear whether Sally made it to the door or not. With some decidedly painful maneuvering of his jawbone, he was able to turn his head to face the window. He could see the tall tower that lead up to his bedroom and study through the window. He'd told Sally where the spare key was, gave her instructions to feed Zero and then search for his missing bones anywhere in the house. Zero's nose would leave the way. He just had to watch and wait, keep his eyes trained on his tower.

How old was Sally? How often had she looked out that window? Did she ever wonder who was up there on his long reading nights, when he let the fire burn long while his mind circled round his skull? Because he certainly hadn't. He was ashamed to admit to himself now, but he'd never thought to ask why the doctor's lights were on in the night, or who was moving behind that window. He was pulled so deeply into his own head, it never mattered to him. How much had he missed by never looking out?

It was so silly. He couldn't be more trapped in his own head than he was right now, but with Sally he had a sounding board for ideas, a friend to talk to... If he could be so literal, he had someone he could look up to.

There! He saw Sally's shadow in the window, illuminated by Zero's light! Now... oh, now it was time to put his plan in motion.

He rolled his head back and called, "Doctor!"

Without his ribs, he couldn't rattle the walls, but he was the Pumpkin King for a reason. His scream was just enough to fill every room of the house without going beyond.

The Doctor replied with his typical kindness. "What- Jack Skellington? What are you doing in the house? Where are you?"

"I'm..." A knot forced its way into Jack's throat so viciously that he had to swallow it in order to speak. "I'm in... Sally's room."

"You what?!"

He need not say more. He could already hear the doctor's motors kicking to top gear as he wound his way to Sally's door. Jack just sat, quietly cowed, and offered the doctor a timid smile as he burst through the door.

"Hello."

"There you are! What have you done to yourself?!" The doctor wheeled over, voice laced with concern. "All of your bones! Why are your thoracic and lumbar vertebrae out of order? Your legs are backwards!"

Between the burning embarrassment and the nervous smile, Jack managed, "Fancy that."

"Igor!" Finklestien shouted to his faithful aide. "Bring me the bone bag!"

Jack blanched. "The bone bag?"

"Don't worry, my boy, Igor and I will have you back together within the hour!" The doctor started palming up Jack's smaller bones in the meantime. "How awful! Who put you in such a state?! I don't know how you managed to pull yourself together like this, but so help me to whoever-"

"Doctor," he interrupted, "Please... let me explain."

While Jack began his explanation right from the very beginning, Sally and Zero finished up. A search of the house turned up no bones, and in her own mind, Sally wondered if that was due to the Mayor being unable to fit through the door. She sighed. Jack, for all of his flowery prose and charisma, didn't seem like the type to think things through. She doubted the next step of the plan as well, to search the Town Hall for Jack's missing pieces. Why would they leave pieces of him in a public place? No, if Jack as as loved and important as the meeting made him look, then the bones would be kept somewhere safe and close to the Mayor.

It would be disobeying her friend's orders, but Sally was learning, and very quickly, that being disobedient wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She'd kept Jack away from Doctor Finklestein out of fear of punishment, of course, but if they had just brought him to the doctor right off the bat, they could have been out of this mess by now. She could admit that to herself with no shame. But at the same time, that first mistake had given her a friend and a teacher and someone to look up to, in a figurative way. She wanted to impress him, and make him happy, and while her words couldn't make it to her mouth yet she would wow him once they did.

Oh, her stomach fluttered at the idea of that. She'd have to follow up on that thought later. She roused Zero from his sniffing with a quiet call of "Zero, find the Mayor!"

They swept out of the house just as Jack was wrapping up his recounting, just as Finklestein was through realigning his spine, and just as the doctor's patience was running out. He still put Jack's bones together in the perfect, correct order, and with delicacy and gentleness, but the hard edge never left his voice or his eyes.

"You _taught_ her," he growled, "How to _drug_ me."

Jack hadn't felt younger in centuries. And it wasn't in the fun way. He swallowed. "It was a rash decision," Jack countered.

"And then you sent her out into town all on her own!" the doctor dramatically sobbed. "A poor defenseless little creation!"

Jack scowled, his goodwill with the doctor slowly decreasing. "Who put me back together by hand."

"And incorrectly, I might add." The doctor didn't even try to hide his scowl, and evidently, Jack hadn't been either. "Don't you grimace at me like that. You're lucky enough I haven't called up the Mayor so he could see you in this state."

It was sheer coincidence that brought Sally to the Mayor's Mayor-shaped house and his trusting unlocked door. It was almost a little disappointing. All this sneaking around and thinking about how to get into and out of places was almost... no, it was just fun! It was very fun! It was a shame Jack wasn't here to be proud of her! At the same time, though, the door was very clearly unlocked. Maybe sneaking wouldn't be necessary at all. She just went right in.

The Mayor had a nice big home! Certainly more colorful than hers, with its checkered floors and red carpets. It smelled clean, too, and it was quiet inside. Zero yelped, and Sally jumped, but before she could turn and run the Mayor scooped up her hands and shook them both. "Oh it's you, miss! I bumped into you and gave you such a scare and I didn't even mean to! I'm so awfully sorry! What's your name?"

She couldn't help but smile at him. What a kind man! Was everyone in Halloween Town as nice as Jack? She'd never expected it from the townspeople that her creator called ignorant and foolish and slow. They all made him so angry, and yet Jack was kind and clever and gentle where the doctor was cold and abrasive. The Mayor remembered her and apologized for a bump she hadn't thought about since it had happened. She started to wonder who the foolish one was in this town. "Sally," she answered softly.

"Sally! What a dreadful name!" he complimented. "Have you any news about Jack?"

She shook her head. No news since she last spoke to him. "Just looking."

The Mayor's frown clicked into place. "Oh, it's just awful! And with Halloween right around the corner! Sit, I'll fix us some tea!" The Mayor disappeared behind the corner with a wail. "I need to calm my nerves!"

Zero yipped and zipped after him. Sally wondered if the Mayor still had "Jack's very bones" in his pockets. She sat herself on the nearest chair, which was oddly about her height, and waited for her host. He came back within only a few minutes- was the tea already prepared?- and noted. "Oh, you fit in Jack's chair. And here I thought he was the only monster in town tall enough."

Sally bowed her head. "I'm sorry."

"It's nothing to apologize for, miss. Now, where was I? Oh yes. I have the whole town out looking," the Mayor continued after setting out some teacups. "But no one's turned up anything! We're all worried sick!" Sally only had to nod in sympathy for him to continue. "You've even got Zero's nose on your side, and to no avail!"

Zero ruffed at his name. Sally followed her gut. "Zero, find Jack."

Indeed, Zero rushed forward and nudged at the Mayor's pocket. The Mayor sweetly patted the dog's head and held the bones out for him to see. They were in one of his pockets, and it looked like the full set they were missing. Sally felt wonderfully vindicated.

The Mayor gushed, "He's such a smart dog."

"Good Zero..." Sally half-gasped with joy. "Go to Jack!"

With the command, Zero took the bones and bolted through the open window.

"Oh! Oh Zero, heel!" The Mayor leaped to his feet and reached for his megaphone. "Oh dear! Stop those bones! Miss Sally!"

Sally threw herself out the door and ran after Zero herself, laughing all the while! How could she go back to that drafty cooped-up house when the world outside was so big and exciting! She would never stand to be stuck in the house with the doctor ever again!

Meanwhile, Jack continued to be stuck in the house with the doctor. He was promisingly complete and nearly at the end of his rope with worry. Only a few tiny pieces kept him from total mobility, and if Sally didn't find them- no, he wouldn't think like that. That was the doctor's talk getting to him. It was the longest half-hour of his life, listening to his friend's every perceived flaw and failing being detailed by her own creator. He wasn't brought out of his funk until he heard three little hollow knocks against the lab door.

"What- Igor! Open the door!"

Zero flying in with his missing bones- all blessed four of them- might have been the happiest moment of his life. "Yes! Doctor, my clothes, hurry! They'll be here any moment!"

"What?! What are you talking about?" The doctor only offered a short pause as Igor hurried Jack's clothes over to him. "Who is 'they'?"

Outside the house, Sally had long since lost Zero. The Mayor had kept following her because she looked like she knew where she was going, and then the Werewolf caught the smell of bones, and then a ghost or two, and by the time Sally could reach the door to home she had all the legged monsters of Halloween at her back. She threw herself at the handle and pulled- and it was locked?! Who had locked it?! Had the doctor found out she'd escaped again?!

"Miss Sally!" The Mayor stopped at the head of the crowd, and the rest of the town fell in behind him. "Are you all right? Did Zero go in there?"

She was too busy catching her breath to answer, just barely getting out a nod and collapsing against the door. He was in there, certainly, but she hadn't made it to the tower in time to put him back together. The whole town was here to discover Jack in pieces! Tears stung at her eyes. The whole plan ruined, if she'd just bought him more time-

Just as she was afraid that she'd failed, the front door opened for her, and she fell into a pair of long and bony arms.

All of the town screamed at once and Jack, for the first time, met her at his full height and his full tux and full set of bones. She looked so much smaller now, the whole world did once you spent a few days on the floor-or-thereabouts, but watching the smile break across her face and her eyes light up with realization... it must have been the most lovely thing he'd seen in his life. All of the scheming and sneaking paid off at that exact moment... or it would, very very soon.

"Everyone! He cheered. He turned Sally to the crowd, holding her tight by the shoulders. "Let me tell you how this wonderful woman saved my life!"

"Her?"

"Saved your life?"

"What'd she do?"

"What a hero!"

"Let me see let me see!"

"Tell us everything, Jack!" The Mayor took Sally by one hand, leading her out into the crowd. "And Miss Sally, we can't thank you enough! I'm telling you know, your name will be loved and remembered in Halloween Town for generations to come!"

"Won't she, though?" Jack cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the doctor's flabberghasted face, but kept the resulting chuckle to himself. He stayed in step with Sally instead. His arm would not be leaving her shoulder for a very long time, thank you very much. He kept an eye on her face instead, watching her smile get wider and wider. "I'll have to personally introduce her to everyone in town."

Sally reached up to hug him- and around his head! He had to stoop to come down to her shoulder level, and while he was there, he laughed. "Sally! Sally, I'm not a head anymore! Hug the rest of me!"

Her voice just reached his ear over the rabble of the crowd. "Thank you, Jack."

"Thank you, for helping me." He pulled himself away just enough to take her hands again. "Come on, there's a whole wonderful holiday I must introduce to you! We haven't begun to scratch the surface, even! Halloween through a fresh set of eyes... how exciting!"

Sally's new outlook, her wide-eyed wonder and marvel at what Halloween was- what it could be- got Jack through the next few months on sheer excitement. He never fully succeeded in getting Sally out of the doctor's house, but with the town knowing she was there and him right next door, he knew for a fact she wasn't being locked in the kitchen or denied an education. The doctor's terrifying glares kept him at a respectable distance, but he never stopped calling Sally his dearest friend, not once.

After all, she was.


End file.
